Why effective communication skills are important for me?
Whenever I speak about having effective communication skills, a small incident that happened when I was in junior college never fail to come to my mind. It is a practise that during the student council election campaign, all nominees have to deliver a three minutes speech in front of the whole student body to gain votes. Two of my very good friends, D and S, running for the Council then were involved in the campaign. D is very outspoken and vocal, while S is less well-verse in communication and presentation though she has better organisation, planning and time-management skills than D. Both of them were relatively well-liked by their peers.
Unfortunately, only D was elected into the Council in the end. It was deduced that S’s failure was probably due to her lack of good communication skills to win over the audience to cast their votes for her.
From the small incident, it really serves to remain me about the importance of having effective communication skills. I strongly believe that effective communication is the key to get you to where you want to be in your life. In the above scenario, to communicate effectively is to create an impact in the audience by bringing across an intended message to influence and convince them. Additionally, effective communication is important for self-expression because no matter how brilliant and invaluable an idea might be, it would be worthless unless it can be shared with others.
Most importantly, effective communication is the key to success in life, work, and relationships because good communication skills can reduce misunderstandings, errors, frustration, and conflict on a daily basis.
Yo Hsiao Wei!
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you that nowadays one's ability is largely judged based on his ability to communicate with others. A good and effective communicator always gives the audience the impression that they have the ability and capability to carry out tasks better as compared to another person who does not communicate as good as him, even if the latter is more capable of doing the tasks well. Hence it is important for us to learn the skills for effective communication. They will be useful when we are trying to convey messages to others as well as to correctly understand their messages.
Hope we will learn useful skills from this course and become a better speaker and listener. :)
Hello Hsiao Wei!
ReplyDeleteThe ability to present oneself well does help us to gather supports and good impressions. This translates into many benefits such as a post in student council, job in future and even future partners and friends. Due to these benefits, many of us are now struggling to master effective communication skills. Though the journey is not easy, we should never give up as there are many examples of people with good and bad communication skills to learn from. Most importantly is that we should open our eyes to see and learn from their good points and try to avoid the same mistakes made by others.
:)
Hi Hsiao Wei,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing that personal anecdote with us! I totally believe that the key to success for all personal goals in life relies on effective communication. Although being an effective communicator may not always result in you getting what you want, you definitely need to be an effective communicator to get a shot at what you hope to achieve.
Hope to hear more ideas from you in the future! See you in class next week and do comment on my blog if you're free :P
Hey Hsiao Wei,
ReplyDeleteI think I've once been in a similar situation that you described above, and I strongly feel that effective communication can prove to be the deciding factor in every facet of our lives.
Moreover, some of us may lack the perfect grades that others have. Yet it doesn't mean the end of the road for us. We can instead work on being effective communicators who can present our ideas clearly and confidently. We don't have to have the best of grades, but we certainly need to be able to speak clearly.
At the end of the day, people want to hire or work with people with whom they can develop rapport, share ideas and understand easily. A person who radiates confidence when he speaks will always appear more impressive.
Now, let's work on building up our communication skills!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Michelle Leng Duei,
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you that it is important for us to learn the skills for effective communication. However, we also have to agree that one who is a good and effective communicator may not necessarily be more capable in carrying out other tasks better than a less effective communicator. For example, in the case of doing up an individual research report, the ability to communicate effectively merely gives us an edge over others during the presentation. The quality of content of the report requires more than having good communication skills, but also other soft skills needed to produce a well analysed and organised report.
Therefore, I believe that in the process of honing effective communication skills, we must also be sure to improve on other skills such as analytical, problem-solving, critical-thinking, time-management, planning and etc. This is to ensure that we eventually develop to become an all-rounded individual who not only can say, but also can do. =)
Hsiao Wei,
ReplyDeleteYes, you're right!
Hi Petrina,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that not only should we learn about effective communication skills from good communicators, but also from the bad ones so that we can learn from their mistakes.
It is natural for us to have the tendencies to model the best in any field. For effective communication skills, we would usually look examples such as Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, or John Kennedy. However, it is also helpful for us to watch communicators who are not as adept so that we can learn from their mistakes and know what to avoid. The goal in listening to them is not to ridicule them or to make ourselves feel superior to them. The goal is, in fact, to help ourselves become more aware of the requirements of a good communicator and to make use of these information to become a better communicator. :)
Hi Ming Yi,
ReplyDeleteI too agree that during our job search, grades are not everything. Nowadays where competition is getting stiffer in the working society, employers are look for individuals who are not only intellectually capable, but also have good communication and presentation skills.
For example, let us say that we do become bioengineers in future. In one of our projects, we have designed a new product such as a suture anchor that can be implantated into the human body. The next step is to get approval in order to manufacture the product. This requires us to convince bosses from our own company and other collaborating companies, as well as the end users (surgeons in this case) that our product is worth investing and developing. We would need to possess effective communication skills in order to clearly explain the working principles and advantages of the product to them. This may probably involve us having to get up in front of a crowd of people - some of them hostile - and verbally explain what you have designed, and answer their questions.
Therefore, someone with good communication skills would be able to appear more impressive and convincing. This would definitely lead him or her having higher chances of succeeding in the task.
Hopefully, this short example of mine that demostrate the importance of having effective communication skills in the workplace is able to provide us with the motivation to improve our communication skills! :)
Hi Darryl,
ReplyDeleteI feel that the point you brought up that effective communication is the key to success for all personal goals in life very well summaries why effective communication is so important.
For instance, better relationships between your family, friends, and partner result from good communication which involves you conveying your feelings effectively and listening to their feelings. I feel that this would allow them to feel closer to you and feel as if they know your stand and feelings well because you were able to communicate that.
Furthermore, good communication skills can also greatly improve work efficiency in the workplace. Effective communication allows individuals within the organization to feel comfortable communicating with each other and to feel informed with the information they are receiving. This would allow both employees and company to perform better because everyone would know what is expected of them and how to perform well.
Hope to hear more ideas from you in future too! :)